The Abras' facade of calm cracked a little as he listened to the resting legendary by his side. Theeldritch abomination...his roaring words buzzed in his frayed mind like a nest of angry hornets. His amethyst eyes fell on the masked hound before him, staring back with...something in his blood-red eyes. Something that nobody should touch. Ever. Panic scratched and clawed to get out of his lungs. The screeching, howling thing that was the source of the ever-pounding beat of four roared before him with bared fangs.

Madness.

Madness that raped the essence of a once pure and beautiful creature. Raped it until there was nothing left. That was what he was looking at. His fur began to stand on end on the nape of his neck. Painful chills swept through his already broken body.

TH-TH-THUM-THUM!

TH-TH-THUM-THUM!

TH-TH-THUM-THUM!

TH-TH-THUM-THUM!"................-tor?" He shrunk as the muted voice suddenly snapped on. The houndooms' mouth was moving yes, but....something was wrong with it. HE was wrong. The Doctor swallowed hard as he tore his gaze away, decidedly resting his gaze on the window behind Hannibal. "Pardon?" He muttered.

_

Hannibal grinned easily, allowing the beaten Abra to soak in his illusionary features. He fed on the horror and subconscious fear that the poor thing dripped with right now. A few scant creatures were able to see through his illusions, and nearly all of them had died at his hands. Even powerful psychic types were often oblivious because of his absolute mastery of the craft, but there was something different about this one. The Doctor had somehow picked up on it right away it seemed, and it made his heart flutter in excitement. This little fox had extraordinary senses, beyond what he had seen in the longest of times. He couldn't measure how much he longed for a complex mind to love and pry apart."It seems like you have endured much, Doctor..." His crimson eyes moved over the bloodied creatures' grave wounds before sliding his penetrating gaze to the Doctors' face. "Are you ready to tell us what happened?" His Sinnoan accent flowing smooth and seductive as silk.

Latias allowed her head to flop down onto the pillow she had been resting on, letting out a long sigh as she rested her tired wings. What a day...so much had happened. The legendary's head, in contrast to her weary body, was nowhere near ready to quit; it whirled with questions, each one birthing another as she ever came close to finding an answer. Most of them were about the Doctor and the encounter he'd had earlier with that vile Alakazam. What secrets was he hiding?

As much as she wanted to, she couldn't just ask out of nowhere, even privately. The Abra was clearly just as exhausted as the rest of them, and needed time to wind down after his stressful ordeal.

Hannibal, though, had other ideas. "It seems like you have endured much, Doctor... Are you ready to tell us what happened?" Latias raised her head to glare at him. They'd only just arrived here; couldn't he at least give the Abra time to even think about what had just happened?

Still...at least they were now relatively safe and relaxed. Latias blinked softly as she looked at the Psi Pokemon, and stretched out with her mind to connect to him. You don't have to be afraid, she told him gently in a voice only he could hear. Sometimes it's good to get things off your chest...I won't judge you, nor think any less of you. Her gaze rested firmly on his. You're my friend, and I'm determined to keep it that way.

"It seems like you have endured much, Doctor... Are you ready to tell us what happened?"

The Doctor said nothing as the dragon rose to glare disapprovingly at the houndoom. His claws held onto one of the foul, old sofas' arms with an iron grip. His dark, vulnerable gaze fluttered to the ground, feeling the hounds' eyes all over him. He swallowed hard in a vain attempt to wet his dry mouth. The horned canids' smooth smile grew even larger behind the muzzle, despite himself. The Abra squirmed uncomfortably as his frayed mind struggled to form words.

You don't have to be afraid, The dragon told him gently in a voice only he could hear. Sometimes it's good to get things off your chest...I won't judge you, nor think any less of you. Her gaze rested firmly on his. You're my friend, and I'm determined to keep it that way.

The Doctor paused at her silent words, glancing at her as he tried to keep his lips from trembling. Finally, he nodded, took a breath and unclenched his shivering teeth. "...Alhoon..." He murmured, the very name sinking his hearts like a ton of lead. It felt like poison on his tongue. She was right...perhaps it was time. Flashing his purple gaze on the legend, he began to speak. "He was once a Time Lord...like me." He glanced around before continuing. "We were a race of beings that have gained the ability to travel through time and space..." The Doctors' eyes grew darker and his ears fell. His claws dug deeper into the couch, the thick cloth ripping under the pressure. "They grew corrupt...they tortured their own children. Destroyed them from the inside out..." TH-TH-THM-THM!TH-TH-THM-THM!TH-TH-THM-THM!TH-TH-THM-THM!A painful image flashed before his eyes in a split second, before disappearing just as quickly. The psi fox flinched as his bloody paw went to his head. "...To make them soldiers and tyrants." He gazed down at his broken body losing himself in the oncoming fog of his mind. "So I led the humans to them, and we killed them all."

He gulped hard as tears threatened to spill over. "Alhoon survived...if you could call it that. And when I threw up that psionic net, to search for the others..." The fox grimaced, cursing himself. "He found me."

"...Alhoon..." the Doctor murmured, the pain on his face all too real. Had that been the Alakazam that had attacked him before? "He was once a Time Lord...like me. We were a race of beings that have gained the ability to travel through time and space..."

Latias's head rose from her cushion, her curiosity piqued. Time Lords? She had never heard of those in her life; they certainly didn't exist in Hoenn. Time and space? she thought to herself, her claws softly raking at the couch beneath her. It almost sounds like something Dialga and Palkia would be responsible for... She bit her tongue to hold back all the questions she wanted to ask; they could wait for later.

"They grew corrupt," the Abra went on. Latias did not like how this story was going. Not one bit. "They tortured their own children. Destroyed them from the inside out...To make them soldiers and tyrants."

"So I led the humans to them, and we killed them all."

"All of them?!" Latias yelped, unable to hold back her shock. She'd expected this tale to have a grisly end, but nothing like that.

"Alhoon survived...if you could call it that. And when I threw up that psionic net, to search for the others...He found me."

Latias fell silent, staring at the fabric of her cushion until she memorised it. Every emotion possible was rolling within her - rage, disgust, sadness, shock...but at the end of it all, the only thing she felt was pity for the Abra. The Doctor was not a bad Pokemon; she'd had plenty of chances to see that. And the pain that was written all over his face was only evident of his own feelings about the situation; he loathed what he had done, but it had been necessary.

"I..." Latias shuffled her wings awkwardly, trying to find a way to break the silence that had fallen over the group. "I'm not sure what to say, if I'm honest." He'd helped the humans to cull his entire race...apart from Alhoon of course. Just what horrors had he witnessed to possess him to do something like that...?

"I..." The psychic dragon at his side stammered, words lost in the atrocity that was the Doctor. The foxes' ears flattened as he looked away from her, his self-loathing gaze falling to the ground. The tar-like aura swirled angrily around him as he could feel the others laying judgment upon him. Tears and anguish turned to a simmering rage.

"I'm not sure what to say, if I'm honest." She finally said, breaking the sound of silence. Breaking his gaze from the ground, he looked at her with a darkness plastered across his face that he had not yet shown any of them. "There's nothing to say. I had told you before...I am guilty of what he accused me of. I am...the genocide of the hospital..."

The hound before them tilted his heavy head as he pondered. "Well, Doctor..." He said unphased and almost...pleased. "You have carried a heavy burden." A wry smile playing on his lips as he settled himself closer to the fox. "Tell me, when you killed them all...did you feel free of them?"

The Doctors' unsettling gaze lifted towards the hound that drew closer to him. "Did you like it...?" He said casually, not even a foot away.

Hannibal could hear the irregular beating pumping in his chest and jugular. The canine paused, his eyes going towards his chest and remaining as if entranced. He watched the blood slowly ooze out in the same beats down the umber bone.

The Doctor grimaced at him, before holding the legends' gaze, longer than he probably should have. After a long, uncertain pause, he answered. "No.""Then we have nothing to worry about," He replied with ease, but the hound seemed to no longer be listening. His senses had honed in on the anomaly within his ribcage. "...Two...? Hearts?..." He looked him in the eye incredulously. "Doctor," he scoffed with an appreciative grin. "Time travel? My friend, what you are is so very intriguing."

_________________

"What's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?The answer is, of course, because they're going to be sad later."

Latias sat silently, listening to the patter of the rain on the roof, as the Doctor and Hannibal conversed. She did not like that Houndoom; not one bit. He asked the Abra if he'd enjoyed killing his tribe - the nerve of him! If the situation wasn't tense enough already, she'd have pinned his scrawny little body to the wall and given him a good talking to. She settled by giving him a firm glare.

Her tongue moistened the inside of the mouth as she suddenly felt thirsty, but somehow, the thought of water made her feel sick. It was the last thing she wanted. Puzzled, Latias shrugged and rested her head. That wasn't the strangest thing that had happened to her today.

"Well...I hope that telling us about it made you feel a little better," she said softly, shuffling her wings into a more comfortable position. "You don't need to say anything else if you don't want to." She hoped that Hannibal wouldn't pry him with any more sinister questions. "Now...I say we try and get some rest. I don't know about you two, but I'm completely bushed."

She flinched as the wound on her neck sent shockwaves of pain through her. Hopefully it would feel better in the morning...maybe then she'd be more in the mood for some water.